The present invention relates to graphical user interfaces, and particularly to display characteristics and methods for determining display characteristics for user interfaces. More particularly still, the present invention relates to displaying a list of items and their properties using a handheld computing device.
Small, handheld computing devices have been steadily growing in popularity in recent years. The devices are known by different names, such as palmtops, pocket computers, personal digital assistants, personal organizers, H/PCs (handheld personal computers), or the like. These devices, hereinafter xe2x80x9chandheld computer devices,xe2x80x9d provide much of the same functionality as their larger counterparts. In particular, the small computer devices provide users the ability to perform word processing, task management, spreadsheet processing, address book functions and Internet browsing, as well as many other functions. Of particular importance to small computer device users is the ability to read and edit text files, such as email or word processing files, from various mobile or remote locations.
Given the small size of these devices, users gain mobility but typically lose other benefits of the larger computer systems. One drawback relates to the fact that small computer devices typically have significantly smaller display areas. That is, these devices tend to have display areas that are less than one-eighth the size of average, desktop display areas. Consequently, due to the limitations of the display sizes, some beneficial information is simply not displayed to users during the use of certain applications.
In particular, when displaying a list of items, such as text documents, the small display limits the number of properties that can be displayed. Essentially, each item has various unique characteristics or properties, such as the item""s, name, size, date of receipt for email or the xe2x80x9clast-modifiedxe2x80x9d date for other text documents. As space permits, these various properties are displayed in combination with the name of the item in separate columns, providing the user a significant amount of information about each item. Displaying properties in this manner allows the user to visually sort the list of items or quickly identify particular items based on separate criteria. Therefore, if the user is interested in, for example, the largest items from a particular person, the user can sort the items by person and then visually scan the size column to locate the largest items without opening each item or otherwise spend time examining the items. Handheld computer devices however cannot display the same amount of information as the larger monitors simply because of their smaller display screens.
In order to compensate for the small display areas, the small computer devices, or more particularly, the applications running on the small computer devices may eliminate columns of information from the display. For example, in an email application where each email message has a xe2x80x9cFromxe2x80x9d property, a xe2x80x9cSubjectxe2x80x9d property, a xe2x80x9cReceivedxe2x80x9d property and a xe2x80x9cSizexe2x80x9d property, the application may chose or be configured to not show the size column to provide more space for the other columns of information. Simply removing the column of information in this manner, however, is an unsatisfactory solution since the size property is a property that users typically want to see as they scan the list of items since the size can provide valuable insight into the type or nature of the item. Moreover, given the importance of memory management for handheld computers the size property for the various items in a list becomes almost necessary.
An alternative solution to optimizing the display space relates to having the handheld computer device narrow the width of each column. Unfortunately however, narrowing each column significantly limits the amount of property information available to a user. That is, the reduced size of the column typically truncates the information, often to the point that no meaningful information can be gleaned from the remaining text and therefore narrowing columns is generally an unsatisfactory solution. For example, narrowing the xe2x80x9cSubjectxe2x80x9d column from an email application to allow time information to be displayed may truncate the subject text such that the user cannot determine the message subject.
It is with respect to these considerations and others that the present invention has been made.
The present invention relates to a system and method for displaying a list of items and property information related to each item, such as size information, on a display without displaying the textual column for the property. The method of the present invention relates to translating the width of the display space into a representation of item size. Using the width calculation, the background space used to display the item""s other properties, e.g., name or subject, is partially colored or tinted using a light color such that the amount of space that is colored represents a size value for the item. Thus, information is displayed to the user based on properties of the item without displaying explicit text. In order to make the size to width translation, a determination of available space, i.e., the width of the column (or columns) is determined. Next a width/size relationship is determined. Using this width/size determination, an amount of space can be allocated to each item based on that item""s size.
The present invention changes the color of the background of its allocated space in a bar format, i.e., changing the color from left to right within the column so that the length of the left-side color is directly related to the size property. Therefore the user can visualize the relative size of the item without showing a size column.
The invention may be implemented as a computer process, a computing system or as an article of manufacture such as a computer program product. The computer program product may be a computer storage medium readable by a computer system and encoding a computer program of instructions for executing a computer process. The computer program product may also be a propagated signal on a carrier readable by a computing system and encoding a computer program of instructions for executing a computer process.
In accordance with preferred aspects of the invention, an embodiment of the invention uses one column to display the size information, although more than one column may be used. In accordance with other preferred aspects, the present invention relates to a predetermined width/size relationship. Alternatively the width/size relationship may vary based on the relative values in the list.
When the width/size relationship varies, the present invention automatically updates the background configuration values as the relevant characteristics change. Changing the visual characteristics as the relative properties change provides the user with a significant amount information related to the item without displaying explicit text. Tick marks, numbers and/or other labels may be displayed to show the user the representative value of the various item sizes.